http://www.dayraypress.com/BEch21preview.htmlPreview of Chapter 21
from The Days of the Bitter End
Cliff was zipping along and only those who knew him recognized the absence of enthusiasm in his sketches. He was going through the motions, faking it, phoning it in, according to the show biz slang. The people did not know that they were getting but half a John Kennedy and half a Cliff Harris. As long as he kept up the Kennedyesque patter accompanied by the Kennedy mannerisms and the Kennedy vocal inflections – as long as he did all that they were satisfied; thrilled, actually.
The skit where he’s serenading “Jackie” on her birthday with his rendition of the ditty “Roses are Red” drew wails of laughter. Adopting the Kennedyesque plainsong monotone, Cliff proceeded with, “Roses-are-ah red-ah, violets are-ah blue, sugah is-ah sweet my-ya love, and-ah, show are you. Now let us go fo-wawd and-ah blow out the-ah candles.” That was the show stopper; but then, everything was. “No Bobby (the president’s brother and attorney general who was even younger and younger-looking than Jack and thus the object of raillery about still being so wet behind the ears), you can’t lick-ah icing off the-ah cake.”
The mask, however, would soon be coming off, if all went according to plan, as Cliff was preparing to surprise them by switching to that sick routine, the sick shtick, that had Kennedy trading missiles with Khrushchev, Kennedy almost gladly offering up American cities for annihilation.
Wipe out Philadelphia? Why not? They’re all Negros! San Francisco? Take it Nikita. They’re all queers. Lenny Bruce material – only many perilous steps ahead. In other words he was going to zing them with a grotesque Kennedy and thus, in his view, awaken them from their slumber.
Forget the beatific stuff; here comes the ugly truth. Not necessarily the truth about Kennedy, but the truth about themselves, ourselves, that other America, the Nixon America that was slouching in the wings.
Cliff’s intention – and his intentions were well-meant – was to hold up a mirror that reflected an America with all its blemishes. The roundtable at McSorely’s had actually dis-suaded him from going ahead with the plan, he was fully prepared to drop it, but then he saw them out there and was provoked.
This was the time to reveal himself as Cliff Harris, a Cliff Harris with a message, a Cliff Harris with a prophecy. The prophecy being that given the right moment, the right leader, or rather the wrong moment, the wrong leader, we are all vulnerable to thuggery and bestiality. The line between civility and barbarism was as fragile as the frail gap between Beethoven and Hitler.
(Lest we forget Salem and McCarthyism and what we did to the Indians.)
Cliff did not have to go far to discover the ugliness that was percolating in all of us. He only had to look inside him-self. He did not like what he saw. Since it was true, according to the wisdom of the fathers, that each individual is an entire universe, therefore he, Cliff Harris, was no better and no worse than the rest, and when he was good, that is, when he was Kennedy, he was very good, and when he was bad, that is, when he was himself and raging under the influence of alcohol or perceived injustice, he was very bad.
So it was not much of a philosophical leap for Cliff to jump from the specific to the general as a judgment of human nature.
First to provoke him this afternoon were the cameras he saw out there from the three major networks, their lights and their scampering up and down the aisles distracting him and breaking his rhythm. Time and again he had warned Gloria MacKenzie and Nate Beloff that he’d never go on if the cameras showed up.
But here they were, no doubt because his “Thank You, Mr. President” album had shot to the top of the charts and thus Cliff Harris was no longer merely entertainment; he was news!
He had always been news but never more so than this moment and when the networks came calling, neither Nate or Gloria or a team of elephants could stop them – not TV. There was no stopping TV. TV was the elephant.